See Us In Our Final Days Laughing

 

One Universal Creator God. By The Grace Of The True Guru

Akaal Sahai

 

Bhai Harjinder Singh Jinda

Bhai Sukhdev Singh Sukha

Pune Jail

2.10.1992

 

Dear and respected brother Ranjit Singh, brother Sukhminder Singh and to all the congregation of the Guru!

 

The Khalsa belongs to Waheguru!

To Waheguru belongs victory!

 

By the grace of the Almighty, we are in high-spirits. We always desire that both you brothers and the entire Panth be graced with high spirits.

 

That auspicious moment that we have been waiting for some time, that day of destiny arrives soon at four o’clock in the morning on the ninth of October. The Almighty has graced us with immense kindness. We consider ourselves very lucky. Preparation for the day of holy union of your brothers is complete, but the world has no news of it. See the fear that these rulers have! One day their senior doctor came to see us and said we have to take down your vital statistics; he measured our height, weight and neck before leaving. The next day he came again. We presumed he knew of our situation. We said, “Dr Sahib, what do you come hoping to see every day? We will be smiling and laughing when we climb onto the gallows; you will be there then too surely and can witness it for yourself, there are only a few days left until that time!” The doctor looked shocked and swore that he did not understand, asking what is this you are talking about? Nobody told me he said. He told us that it is his duty to remain until after the execution, just as it is vital, he be told once the date had been set. He had no clue as to why he had not yet been told. We asked him to consider what power the State yielded if they were trembling at the thought of informing their own staff of an impending execution, lest it leak out into the public domain.

 

Dear brothers! The strictness in this place has gone out of control. We only have four pages of paper remaining and that too was procured with great difficulty. They do not allow us to write letters anywhere, to the extent that we were unable to send a telegram to our families upon learning of the date of execution. It has been three days since the date of execution was set but we have seen no reports of it in any newspaper. We determined to write this final letter to you our brothers in secret and will endeavour to find some way to smuggle it out to you. It is thanks to your love and the learning you have shared with us that we have succeeded in our purpose and that is why we decided to write to you one last time. It is thanks to you our brothers that we have spent six years in jail with our dignity intact, and when we climb onto the gallows we shall do so with dignity. Having resided in captivity of the enemy, our desire was to vanquish our foes and teach them such a lesson that they would tremble at the mere sight of the Sikhs. Some time ago, their Defence Minister Sharad Pawar visited our prison. At that time, he was the Chief Minister of Maharashtra. He came into our cell where we told him, “If you give us cause for concern, think long and hard about your future.” His complexion changed in an instant as he replied, “No do not worry, we will not allow you to come under any duress.” During his tenure, many of the prisons in Maharashtra modified their buildings, adding yards which were also covered with iron bars to make them look like cages. There was no breeze coming in from any sides. Many everyday Sikhs who were arrested under TADA are locked away in these yards; there are no court hearings for them. Seeing all this, the thought came to mind, why not procure weapons and seek out justice from here within? There are many ministers who frequently visit these institutions. We were personally residing in prison with a firm attitude and demeanour, but our aim was to change the lot of the everyday Sikhs who faced the abuse of the prison officials whilst incarcerated. They tried to mete out abuses to us too; several attempts were made to dress us in prisoners clothing, but we stood firmly against this. We told them that if we don’t accept your laws and rules why should we accept wearing your uniform. On more than one occasion we held the D.I.G. and the superintendent of the prison by the throat, and tore the clothing off prison guards, slapping them in the process. We did such things continuously, humiliating them in numerous ways. We have so much control over them that they tremble at the thought of merely entering our yard. On the day when the superintendent told us the date of our execution, we told him that we wanted to send telegrams to our family to inform them; but he told us that he had orders from higher up that the date of the execution should not even be known widely within the prison, let alone in the wider public. “I am compelled to follow these orders,” he told us, “You can curse me, do whatever you choose to do, but there is nothing I can do.” The one promise he made was that on our final meeting date he would ensure that our family could visit with us one last time. We responded to him by saying that we cared little for the meeting, nor did we care about our worldly relationships in fact, what was amazing to us was how far their inhumanity had fallen, and that their rulers were so struck by timidness that they feared telling even our families of the impending execution. We embarrassed the superintendent by saying this and more. We continued by telling him that he and his peers were of good fortune for otherwise we would have shown how atrocities committed against Sikhs are dealt with; we had not procured a weapon and still we had them shaken within! They themselves know only too well what would have transpired had arms arrived.

 

Brothers, on the twenty-second of September our prison was converted into an army cantonment. There were hundreds of commandos surrounding from all four sides. In our unit alone there were over a hundred commandoes posted. We were reciting Gurbani at the time. All of a sudden, they gave a call to move in on us. The D.I.G. of the prison, the Commissioner of Police at Pune, three D.S.P ranks and many more officers were present. They came and told us to put on handcuffs as they were going to conduct a search. We grabbed the D.I.G. and the Superintendent by the throat and upset their plans pushing everybody back. We did not wear the handcuffs and told them that the search could be conducted but it would be done by ourselves, that they could not touch a single thing. If they tried to use force, we told them that we would not allow them to remain within our cell, until our dying breath. We challenged them to do so if they were brave enough. But they quickly agreed with us and said that we could show them all items in the cell ourselves. We knew the reason why they had entered that day and what had transpired earlier. Two days previously a prison guard was arrested for his misdeeds – the very same who had been attempting to procure a weapon to deliver to us. The weapon had reached him but for whatever reason he had not yet passed it on to us. The Supreme Court upholding the decision in the Vaidya case had led to increased security in the prison and it may have been that he became scared or found it too difficult or perhaps his intentions were dishonourable. If he had really wanted to, he could have delivered it despite the hardships. As it happens anybody can enter the yard and is then searched. But when we stand before the guard room, nobody dares to search us. We had a prisoner in the yard who did all of our cleaning work through whom we sent written messages. He was on duty to iron the guard’s clothes and we kept sending the prisoner to meet with him. The prisoner also knew of the entire plan and would have brought the weapon as we had recompensed the prisoners. We now know the reality of why the guard did not provide us with the weapon; he had kept the weapon with a known goon who in turn started to loot contraband from him and was consequently caught after which the scheme unraveled. Today that prison guard is in police custody. He has also confessed to the involvement of four other peers who have joined him in custody. It has been said that we both would have escaped from jail if the weapons had not been found, but nobody really knew what our aim was. Our target was a significant scalp, an endeavor in which we had faith we would succeed. If we had not been successful, the I.G. of the prison, the Superintendent, the Deputy and Senior Jailors had not gone anywhere; we could have sought justice through targeting them. The previous D.I.G. and Superintendent were more humane with us, but since the arrival of these individuals they insulted and degraded us repeatedly but were still not satisfied. It is for this reason that we sought to target them.

 

In these days our prison conditions have changed dramatically. The Pune Police force, the M.R.P. and some other agencies have taken control of the prison. All but the Superintendent are searched thoroughly horribly. Not even a bird can fly freely in our yard! The work of prisoners is now too being undertaken by prison guards and soldiers. Whether they are soldiers or guards, they are here permanently – no replacements come to take over. Since the day the commandos came to search our cell, everybody including the Superintendent enters our yard nervously. Even if he comes taking great caution and care, he still walks in fear. Many high-ranking officials from agencies came to gather information about that incident for a report but none dared to enter the yard, they remained behind the bars. We told them many times that we would bring no harm to them, that they could come forward and inside. But none did. So now we have said that we refuse to speak to them. And so, nobody comes. One D.I.G. told us that there is no interest in visiting upon us to make inquiries, that if they come it is only to see us in the flesh. We ask them what they feel after seeing us? He was silent and so we asked him further if he saw any fear in our faces. He replied no. We told him, “See us in our final days where we will be laughing like this”.